


Pandimensionality 101

by MercuryHomophony



Series: The Pandimensional Trio [2]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Carlos is Inhuman, Carlos is a Good Boyfriend, Cecil Is a Good Boyfriend, Eldritch Carlos, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-01-19 14:05:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1472557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryHomophony/pseuds/MercuryHomophony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that Carlos finally feels more comfortable and open about his multi-dimensional existence, he begins to realize that he really doesn't know that much about his abilities, past the little he’s been able to experiment with outside of Night Vale. Cecil tries to help out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ...and Drink to forget.

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back, to A Monster In Night Vale's sequel, Pandimensionality 101, the second piece of the Pandimensionality Trio. :3 This will probably also have 3, maybe four chapers, and then the final piece.
> 
> Enjoy!

“And with the menace of the floating gerbils that breathe fire that does not burn, but causes those ignited to re-experience the most embarrassing moments of their lives, past us,” Cecil announced smoothly into the mike, “we can at last relax, knowing that the past is unchangeable, unreachable, and unknowable, so there is little point worrying about it. The moments where we have failed are past, and we must look forward, to failing more in the future.

“Good Night, Night Vale. Good Night.” He paused briefly, eyes on the red light just to the left of his desk, and waited until it flickered off before letting out a small sigh. It had been a long day, and although the station had not been hit nearly as hard as other parts of town, there had been enough rodents floating around to warrant a night of Drink To Forget. He sat up in his seat, straightening the papers on his desk neatly and placing them in the drawer for filing tomorrow, before getting up and grabbing his jacket. He flicked the switch off before locking up the booth, nodding to the new intern, Nathaniel, who had done remarkably well with the gerbil attack. In fact, it had been his idea to lure them into the bathroom, where  Khoshekh and his kittens had made short, terrible, screaming work of them. He popped into the bathroom quickly to make sure the sink was turned on for them, scratched Khoshekh behind some of his ears (his purring was just the most adorable~!) and made his way to the station exit. As he emerged into the cooling desert evening, his phone buzzed in his back pocket. He pulled it out, along with his keys, and flipped it open, scrolling to his texts as he unlocked his door, and smiling as Carlos’s name popped up on the screen.

 

_hey, are you out of the studio yet?_

 

He sat in the drivers seat and shot back a quick

 

_Yes, I just got in the car. Headed home. You still in the lab?_

 

He geared up the engine, which spluttered and let out a few choice expletives (he’d have to get that looked at, soon,) and pulled out of his parking spot and towards home. He heard his phone buzz once, then twice on his way, but he didn’t check them. Better to delay answering his wonderful Carlos than to run off the road or get pulled over by the Sheriff’s Secret Police. He pulled into his usual parking spot on the street and turned off the engine (not without some words about his mother and lack of sexual prowess), and only then pulled out his phone again.

 

_yeah, but I’m just wrapping up_

_are you busy tonight?_

The reporter felt a smile creep across his face, small and giddy. The two of them had been dating for nearly three months now, but even then, he felt a small thrill whenever Carlos wanted to make plans. Unfortunately, today had been quite stressful.

 

_I'm actually DTF tonight. The station had quite a few of those nuisances today, before Khoshekh and his kittens took care of them._

He tucked the phone back in his pocket, locking up his car and heading inside. He hung his jacket up behind the door and walked straight into the kitchen, pulling out a stool to reach the high wooden cabinet above the fridge. He examined the contents for a few minutes, before pulling out one larger clear bottle and two smaller amber colored bottles. Balancing them carefully, he stepped down and took them out to the living room. Another buzz called him back to his phone.

 

_wait what? DTF? :?_

 

Cecil frowned, confused, and shot back,

 

_DTF. Drinking To Forget. Because of the gerbil fire?_

 

This time he waited for the return text, and after a moment

 

_… remind me to tell you what that means outside of night vale. :) do you mind if I join you? we got some of the little furballs at the lab too. :(_

 

Cecil grinned, returning to the kitchen to grab not one, but two shot glasses.

 

_You’re always welcome :)_

 

-

 

It had taken Cecil a few shots to ply the non-Night Vale meaning of DTF from Carlos, and had flushed profusely when he finally told him, but by that point he had finished off a couple of shots himself, and was too tipsy to be truly embarrassed. And really, that was the point. Cecil had brought out the top grade stuff, things that would erase your identity if you drank more than a bottle or so, and it would be more than enough to wipe out the embarrassing memories the gerbils had dragged up that day, along with the results and probably the majority of the evening. That was something that disappointed Cecil somewhat, thinking about it through a haze of alcohol fumes, his head resting on Carlos’s lap. It was nice to just relax with the scientist, even if it was while utilizing fermented plant matter to dissolve experiences of the past from his mind. He couldn’t help but giggle a little, watching Carlos’s beautiful hair dangling above him, just long enough that it curled a little past his ears.

Carlos was holding his liquor much better than he, possibly because he was somewhat bigger than the reporter, possibly because only a small portion of him actually existed on this plane of existence. It suddenly occurred to Cecil that Carlos probably wouldn’t experience the same memory loss that he would, what with the pan-dimensionality, and he stopped giggling, his brow furrowing as he tried to focus his vision on Carlos’s face. Carlos, a content, somewhat dopey smile gracing his features, was observing his glass lazily. Cecil narrowed his eyes on the scientist’s face, willing him to notice his scrutiny so he could ask his question.

Usually, Carlos was quite good at noticing the changes in his mood, mostly because he could see the reporter’s emotions played out on his aura. That was another fascinating thing about Carlos as well, Cecil wondered, still examining the other man’s face. Cecil wasn’t exactly a closed book to begin with - he wore his heart on his sleeve, broadcasted his feelings all over the radio, and was never afraid to say what he thought, so long as his thoughts were municipally approved. But Carlos could see even more than that.

He had described it once as being similar to a mood ring, an aura around most people that displayed their emotions. With each person, you had to learn which colors corresponded with which emotions, but once you had it figured out, you could pretty much know how the person felt before they did. Carlos, in all his modesty and respect, admitted that he tried not to use it at all if he could help it, although the better he knew someone the harder it got. Cecil had given him express permission to look at his own aura, which seemed to be a relief. Carlos was ever so considerate, sometimes.

Cecil had forgotten what he was planning on asking his boyfriend by this time, although Carlos must have finally noticed the shift in his emotions, because he glanced down, smile widening a little as he placed one large hand on his head, threading through his hair. “Something on your mind?”

Cecil closed his eyes at that, nearly purring at the sensation of Carlos’s wonderful fingers rubbing against his scalp and through his hair. Carlos chuckled, massaging slightly and placing his cup down on the end table to free his other hand. Between the vodka and the pleasant feelings, any questions he had been thinking of fled, leaving him with only a happy glow and a faint queasiness from the amount of alcohol he’d consumed. “I don’t remember. Nothing important.” He smiled up at Carlos, reaching up one hand to thread his hand through Carlos’s hair, returning the gesture. “Hello.”

Carlos laughed quietly again. “Hello. I think you’ve had enough tonight.”

Cecil pouted and lowered his hand, struggling to push himself up into a sitting position. “Nooo,” he whined, sounding more childish than he had wanted. “I’m good for another three, four more shots.” He matched Carlos’s incredulous stare, albeit woozily. “Trust me, I’ve done this before.”

They matched gazes for a brief minute, before Carlos closed his eyes. Cecil waited patiently while the other examined his aura, determining whether or not Cecil was being truthful or, more importantly, reasonable. Not much later, he sighed, opening his eyes and reaching for the bottle again.

“Well then, I’ll pour us another round.” He filled Cecil’s cup and handed it to him, before filling his own. “But this is my last one.” He held the shot glass towards Cecil, smiling. “Cheers.”

“To forgetting,” Cecil added jokingly, clinking their glasses together and moving to take the shot.

“To being DtF,” Carlos shot back, Cecil halfway through his shot. He choked and sputtered and flushed, and finally managed to swallow the rest of his drink without pulling a spit-take.

“Y-you’re terrible,” he finally huffed, pouring himself another shot to properly wash down the tickling sensation in his throat. Carlos only smirked, and downed his own shot, perhaps a little too quickly, as he coughed a little after swallowing. Cecil stuck his tongue out, downing his own.

“Don’t stick that out if you’re not planning on using it.” Again, coughing and wheezing. “Two for two! I’m on a roll tonight!”

“If you’re trying to kill me, you’re doing an excellent job.” Another shot was poured. Carlos laughed.

“Never.” He unraveled at the edges, wrapping a tendril around Cecil and pulling him closer. “But you might want to wait a few minutes before you drink that next shot. You took those last two pretty quickly, and that stuff is heavy.” Another tendril looped forward lazily and picked up the bottle, bringing it closer so Carlos could examine it. “What kind of vodka is this, anyways?”

“It’s local stuff… John Peeters, you know, the farmer? He makes a couple of batches of it every year when the imaginary corn comes in.”

Carlos processed that, then looked over at Cecil, who was staring into his glass, brow furrowed in concentration over something. “...it’s made with corn?”

“Mm-hm.”

“So… it’s moonshine?”

“Mm-hmmmm…”

“We’ve been taking shots of imaginary corn moonsh- what are you staring at?”

Cecil pinched his lips together, looking frustrated. “This glass will not stop splitting itself in two,” he grumbled, staring at the shot in annoyance. “Which is very rude. I’m trying to drink…”

Carlos carefully reached over and took the cup from him. “Okay, I’m pretty sure you’ve had enough.” Cecil continued glaring at the cup, even as he put it down on the coffee table. “Cecil.” No response. He curled one tendril underneath the reporter’s chin, gently nudging his face towards him. Reluctantly, and with a little resistance, Cecil allowed his face to be turned. Carlos rewarded him with a peck on the lips, which made him brighten up significantly. “You had those last two pretty fast. Why don’t we call it a night?”

Cecil’s aura immediately darkened in protest, but as he opened his mouth to verbalize it, Carlos held up a hand. “Okay, okay, we don’t have to call it a night. But…” he wracked his brain momentarily. “But how about we try an experiment?”

Cecil sat back, eyeing Carlos curiously (and wobbling a little). He didn’t want to admit it, but perhaps he had been a little overeager with the last two beverages. “Wha’ kind of experiment?” he asked, and oh masters of all he was slurring, yep, it was time to quit. Not that he’d say that out loud, of course.

“I hypothesize that there’s another method of forgetting embarrassing things.”

Cecil felt a little shiver run down his spine. He worked in radio, he specialized in sound, and he could hear the turn of Carlos’s voice, the subtle change in cadence. “Oh?”

Carlos, in turn, needed only to blink to see that Cecil’s aura had flushed suddenly, going from a curious orangey-yellow, a quite charming color, to a blushing pink-purple, deceptively naive, with dark, secretive strokes underneath, to know that the reporter was on board with the idea. He grinned, allowing himself to unspool more of his shadowy tendrils, slowly wrapping themselves lightly around Cecil’s arms. “Yes,” he said, cupping Cecil’s face and leaning in so their lips were almost touching. “Would you like to head into the bedroom with me and help me...experiment?”

Cecil responded by leaning forward suddenly, crashing their lips together before overbalancing, sending the two of them tumbling back against the couch with a loud thump. Undeterred, Cecil just climbed on top of him, still locked in a kiss, and his hands started roaming across Carlos’s chest, coming to rest on the buttons near his neck. Carlos felt him fumble with them, normally clever fingers dulled by drink, and looped shadows around Cecil’s torso, pulling him off of him just slightly. “Bedroom, Cecil,” he reminded, carefully standing up. Cecil nodded eagerly, then swayed a little, looking dizzy. Carlos gave him a hand, pulling him upright and supporting him from all sides. “C’mon.”

He was surprised how easy it was to get to the room - despite the drinks he had had earlier, he didn’t feel all that inebriated, although he was starting to think Cecil was more than three sheets to the wind. He found himself half leading, half carrying the smaller man, guiding and balancing him with hands and tendrils until he was able to collapse on the bed.

He hesitated, hovering over Cecil lying on the bed, face flushed with drink and lust, eyes clouded and focused as best they could on him. He knew he had started it, but with the way Cecil was now, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea…

And that wasn’t the only issue, either. Carlos had taken four shots himself, he should have felt much drunker than this, but instead he only felt pleasantly buzzed, as if he had merely had a beer or some light mixed drink. As it stood, though, he was in much better control of his facilities than Cecil was, and fretted (as he often did) about taking advantage of him.

“Hey, Cecil, maybe we should -”

Cecil growled - actually growled, like a dog or Khoshekh when he was angry - and grabbed Carlos’s shirt collar, pulling him down. “Carlos,” he whimpered, rolling his hips up suddenly into the scientist. “Please.” And he pulled Carlos’s lips into his, tongue running across them, nipping playfully and pleadingly until Carlos gave in, kissing back and lowering himself onto Cecil.

And it wasn’t long before Carlos’s shadows enveloped them both.

 

-

 

Something shuffled beside him, pulling him up and out of the deep slumber that had claimed him. He came slowly to his senses, recognizing the feelings of bedsheets and pillows around him, and blearily allowed his other sight to take in his surroundings. An aura off to his left let him know what had stirred and awoken him, and -

Oh. That was not a good color.

He opened his eyes and rolled on his side, towards Cecil. The reporter had been burying himself further under the covers, probably trying to avoid the sunlight that was now peeking through the window and onto the bed. When Carlos moved, the lump under the blankets let out a pitiful, annoyed noise, and a couple pinpoints of pain flashed through the aura. Gently, Carlos placed a hand where he figured Cecil’s shoulder was, and shook it lightly. “...Cecil?”

A mumbled string of syllables was the only response, the voice rough and cracked, quite unlike Cecil’s usual smooth tones. Worried, Carlos shook him again. “Cecil, are you alright?”

“Agubehmmmnnn…” groaned the lump, wriggling away from his hand and burrowing further into the blankets. “Mnnethhhhhhssssss…”

“Cecil, I… I have no idea what you’re trying to say.” He reached over, pulling the blanket up a little so he could see his face, careful not to let any sunlight through. “What’s wrong?”

Cecil blinked up at him, eyes squinted near shut, and bared his teeth weakly. A low hiss escaped him as he grabbed the blanket back, pulling it over his face. “Mnuff.”

He stared at his buried boyfriend, at a loss for what to do. His aura was painful to look at, mixes of pain and exhaustion and something else that Carlos had never seen on him before… he couldn’t just leave him like this, but if he didn’t know what to do, there wasn’t much he could do. He sighed, rolling over and getting out of bed and looking for his clothes. “I’ll be right back, Cecil.”

“Errrrrmmmphgg,” whined the lump.

 

-

 

Carlos had never thought anyone would be thankful to have a person secretly living in their house, but right now, he could kiss Cecil’s Faceless Old Woman. She had very kindly written him a note with jam, explaining that after a night of drinking, Cecil just wasn’t Cecil until he had coffee. And so, Carlos had followed her written instructions and brewed a pot of coffee for them. He left one mug steaming on the counter, with sugar and cream available, just in case she wanted any, and took the other two back into the bedroom. Cecil hadn’t moved an inch.

“Hey Cecil,” he whispered, putting his cup down on the bedside table. "Cecil, I've got something for you."

There was a self-pitying sniff, a pause, then an earnest sniffing. Slowly, the blankets parted, revealing Cecil's squinting eyes, focused on the cup in his hand.

There was another moment of silence, and Carlos signed. "You have to sit up if you want it."

Cecil gave a pitiful whine, but slowly, reluctantly pulled himself into a sitting position, blinking blearily at Carlos, who handed him the mug. “Careful, it’s -” Cecil took a large swig, “Hot…” Carlos finished. Cecil’s responding blink was less sluggish, so he figured that he’d be fine in a bit. “While you finish that, I’m going to make breakfast, okay? Scrambled eggs sound good?”

Cecil made a small, affirming noise as he took another long draught of his coffee, so Carlos grabbed his own and made his way back to the kitchen. He was well into cooking the eggs when Cecil finally made it, fully dressed, hair brushed, and chipper.

A pair of arms wrapped around his waist as he scrambled the eggs, and he smiled, peering to his right at Cecil. “Morning, sleepy.”

Cecil gave him a peck on the lips. “You - Are - A - Blessing,” he told the scientist, punctuating with more kisses. “Thank you so much for the coffee. How did you know?”

“Your Faceless old woman told me.”

“That was so nice of her. I’ll have to bring some Rico’s home for her, she’s fond of that.” He sniffed, looking past Carlos at the pan filled with egg. “That smells delicious.”

“I figured some breakfast would help you with that hangover. Why don’t you sit down, it’s almost done.”

Cecil beamed at him. “You are so wonderful, Carlos,” he sighed happily, turning and walking off. Carlos heard the scrape of a chair on the floor and the thump of a body plopping down in it. He smiled, stirring the eggs with the spatula.

“I’m surprised I wasn’t as bad off as you were this morning,” he said, adding a little salt to the pan (the cooking kind, of course. He’d never make that mistake again). “I had almost as much as you did.”

“Well of course you weren’t,” was the simple response, followed by the sound of coffee being sipped. “You were manifested.”

Carlos half-turned, raising an eyebrow at the reporter. “Does that really make a difference?”

“Well of course it does, you’ve got all that extra stuff, not to mention trans-dimensional distribution of alcohol, if you exist in the right dimensions.” Cecil lowered his coffee mug, tapping his fingers thoughtfully on the table. “You probably should have had a lot more to drink, to help you forget.” He peered, brow furrowed in a concerned and somewhat troubled expression. “You didn’t remember anything you didn’t want to, or wasn’t Secret Police mandated, did you?”

“No, of course not,” Carlos lied easily. The aftermath of the Chem lab incident would be one he would always remember, flaming gerbils or not. “I must have been right on the line.” He looked back down at the eggs, decided they were about done, and took them off the heat. “How do you know all of this stuff, anyways?” he asked, scooping two servings onto a pair of plates and placing one in front of Cecil.

Cecil made a pleased sound, taking a bite of egg before considering Carlos’s question. “It’s part of a standard Night Valean education,” he said around a mouthful of eggs. “Pandimensionality 101, in the 4th grade I think?” He paused, chewing thoughtfully. “...no, it must have been 6th grade. It was a subsection of Good Citizen training.”

“Pandimensionality 101...? Wha-” Carlos paused, sitting down and thinking. “What exactly do they teach there?”

“Did they not have that where you grew up?” Carlos didn’t have to answer - Cecil saw his face and frowned. “That’s… That’s a terrible gap in your education, especially considering. They didn’t have it at all?”

“No, like I told you - there aren’t many pandimensional beings outside of Night Vale… actually, none that I know of. It’s not something most people think is even possible.” Cecil clicked his tongue at that, something Carlos had come to see as annoyance, but didn’t interrupt. “I didn’t even know if there’s any information about that kind of thing anywhere.”

“Well.” Cecil took a few more bites, chewing as he mulled over this new information. "Well. That’s something you ought to know about, Carlos.” His voice slid a little into his Radio voice, as if he were announcing to the entire town. “It is, after all, important to know one’s-self, so that one can be safe from one’s-self.” His eyes glazed slightly in thought.

“Cecil…”

“I’ll look into it,” the reporter cut him off, a strong tone of finality in his voice, coming out of his reverie to smile across the table at Carlos. “I’m sure the school has a spare textbook or two on the subject - I can stop by after work today and ask if we can borrow some. They wouldn’t mind helping out Night Vale’s most important scientific community member!”

Carlos could only smile at that. "So long as its not too much trouble, Cecil," he replied, taking a bite from his own plate. Cecil  just waved a dismissive hand in response and smiled. "Do you want a ride to the station this morning? The guys at the lab decided we'd start late today, give all the fires time to burn out, so I don't have to be in yet."

"Oh Carlos," Cecil beamed, "That would be lovely."


	2. No One Misses A Slice of Big Ricos...(Especially Cecil)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos has a relatively uneventful day, and a relatively worry-filled evening. But everything is always relative, isn't it?

That had been this morning. Carlos had gone into the lab late, found the fires still burning, and worked with his labmates and the ever-so-helpful Sandy (he wasn’t sure he was supposed to know her name, but it was hard to tell with the Sheriff's Secret Police) to put out the small ones still smouldering in sections of the lab. Once they were nothing but charred clumps of fur on the floor, Sandy had cheerfully resumed her spot in their ventilation, and everyone returned to their lab work as best they could.

Carlos, as head of the research team, found himself yet again writing up expense reports to help cover some of the equipment lost in the fire-not fire. They took him maybe half the day, and he was grateful for the extra hours the sun slipped, because it allowed him to check in on several of his ongoing projects, along with consulting some of the field scientists about their discovery of a grassy plain that had appeared in the middle of a housing development, actually covering the buildings. Recommendations were given and followed, paperwork for study was filed and crammed into the ventilation to Sandy, and science was done. All in all, an excellent work day.

Of course, it didn’t hurt that Cecil shot him a text message later in the afternoon, asking if he’d be interested in meeting up for dinner at Rico’s that evening. Carlos had smiled, and texted back that he would love to, and asked for the time. Cecil responded, just before one of his fellow scientists switched on the radio and that wonderful voice flowed out over all of them with the eerie yet soothing opening music to the NVPR show. 

Cecil updated Night Vale on the electoral races (Carlos was secretly glad he and his team were currently ineligible to vote - the Faceless Old Woman who lives in his house had been brutal about her campaign, and had backed off somewhat when she learned that one has to live in Night Vale for 3 years to have voting privileges), along with a warning from the Sheriff's Secret Police that Vampires were certainly not real, but Womb-Bats would definitely take your head off in a heartbeat. Carlos could hear Sandy snickering in the vents at that, and quietly slipped her a candy bar. That was her signal to the scientists that it was a decoy announcement, made to keep the Night Vale citizens on their toes for the next big, real danger.

Cecil then went through the day, reporting on its happenings, the cleanup of the gerbil hair, which of course no one remembered, made some subtle hints about the nature of new Station Management, and moved to the weather. 

Carlos waited for him to text, as he usually did during the break, but as the song went on and nothing came through, he felt a little concerned. He tapped idly at the phone in his pocket, staring through a microscope and taking notes on a tablet with his free hand.

The weather finished with no message. Somewhat put out, he wrapped up his work, carefully storing all his materials and bidding his coworkers good night. As he left, he did hear Cecil mention running some errands before a dinner with his beloved Carlos, and flushed, smiling, as he was chased out of the lab by enthusiastic, playful hoots from his fellow scientists. It was good to know Cecil was thinking of him.

\--

Carlos was at Rico’s at nine o’clock sharp, showered and dressed. He had been working on breaking his unfortunate work-a-holic habits, much to Cecil’s delight, and had made the extra effort to show up on time for their dates, without the remnants of his most recent science smeared over his lab coat or in his hair. No matter what he did, though, Cecil managed to show up before he did, and always had a place reserved for them. As he looked around the booths, he wondered if that was because Cecil was more accustomed to Night Vale time, or if it was just an oddity of Cecil.

He stopped wondering about it when he didn’t find Cecil on his first look-over. He started worrying on the second, and was deeply concerned by the third. He checked his watch, but it read the time he was supposed to meet Cecil there. Something knotted itself anxiously in his stomach, and he forced himself to breathe. Just because Cecil had never been late to meet with him before, doesn’t mean that something was horribly wrong now, right?

He took the liberty of grabbing them a booth in the back, sliding into the seat as he slipped his phone from his pocket. He flipped it open, checking his text messages. There was one from Cecil about half an hour ago, reminding him of the time and letting him know the radio host would meet him there once he was done his errands, but nothing since then. 

_“hey, you on your way?”_ he texted, placing the phone in front of him on the table. One of the Rico jrs swept over, dropping a menu next to it and tilting its head slightly towards the empty half of the booth. 

“Yeah, he’s on his way, I think,” Carlos responded to the unspoken question. The Rico jr nodded, smiled, and dropped another menu, before sweeping away to grab some orders for another table. Carlos picked up the menu, keeping one careful eye on his phone, and tried to distract himself by looking for something he and Cecil could enjoy together. Minutes passed. Every time the bell over the door rang, Carlos looked up, hopeful - only to sag back into his seat as hooded figures, gun-toting children, and Josie with her angels came in and out. He was sulking just a little when a presence beside him startled him.

He looked up into what appeared to the human eye to be thin air. He could clearly see with his other senses the tall dark figure that loomed over him, face hollowed into an approximation of human shape, limbs geometric cylinders that led to flat trapezoidal hands and tapered cone fingers. A series of rings encircled its head, spiked with intersecting lines that Carlos knew he would never understand the meaning of, though at the moment, it looked like music.

The Black Angel (who did not exist) tilted its face down towards him, purposefully exuding an aura of friendliness and polite concern. When Carlos just stared back in confusion, it lifted one arm and pointed to the empty seat.

“Oh, uh… Cecil’s meeting me here… I think he got caught up in errands, he’ll probably - OW!”

A cane rapped sharply against his leg, and he bent, one hand going down to rub the stinging away. Only one person was that quick with a cane, and sure enough, the Black Angel shifted aside to reveal old woman Josie. 

She sniffed, pulling her cane back to rest it in front of her. “It’s polite to answer on the same level you’re asked, young man,” she said sternly, peering over her glasses in a way that made Carlos feel like he was five. He sunk in his seat, abashed.

“Sorry, ma’am.” He turned back to the angel, who had observed all with no new expression in its aura, but let him know that it was still attending to what he had to say. With some difficulty, he constructed a few mental images of Cecil, the text messages, and their plans, accompanied by the sense of growing worry he was feeling the later Cecil was, and bundled it up, exuding it to his odd conversation partner.

The Angel’s aura stilled, sucked back into its body like water into the dusty cracked ground as it received and processed his message. Slowly, a grey-purple aura, the color of bruising skin, began to seep from its skin. He looked into its face and saw, for the first time, tiny grooves digging into the otherwise unmarked shape of its face, forming a small frown and furrowed eyebrows. It turned its face suddenly towards old woman Josie, who looked up and listened attentively as it chimed and beeped, the halo spinning and lines shifting as it communicated. Carlos watched with interest and a healthy dose of Night Vale fear - if an angel, who did not exist, was worried, then it stood to reason he ought to be as well.

When it was finished, Josie turned back to him, a no-nonsense look in her eye. “Erika says you shouldn’t bother waiting - He’s not coming.”

Carlos immediately went to protest, because that was just not possible, what could have happened to Cecil to make that happen, but she held up a hand and his jaw snapped shut. “It’s not his fault, mind, and he certainly didn’t mean it. Erika and I recommend that you grab a pizza to go and head over to his house to wait for him. He’ll certainly need it.” The Angel nodded in agreement.

“Is he okay?” Carlos couldn’t help but ask. The Angel chimed something, and Josie just fixed him with a stare.

“He will be, Erika says don’t fret,” she told the scientist. “And what Erika says is trustworthy. Go on back to his house. Shoot him a text to let him know you’re there. And wait for him.” 

He could tell that she wouldn’t be answering any more questions, so he simply nodded. Satisfied, she turned away and walked back to her booth, where the other four angels waited, chiming happily to one another. The Black Angel gave him a perfectly polite inclination of the head, to which Carlos replied with a bow of his, before it floated off to rejoin its brethren. Carlos picked up the menu again and sighed, looking over the pizza options for the two of them.

\--

Carlos had picked something unassuming and gluten free to go, shrugging off the Rico jr’s curious gaze, and driven over to Cecil’s house. Walking up to the front door, he turned to the moving shrub in the front yard.

“Uh, The Dairy Queens are nice this time of year?” he asked, trailing off hesitantly. There was silence, then the shrub spat out a set of keys.

“Only the ones with non-wheat waffle cones,” SSP officer Philip replied from the bush. Carlos stooped down carefully, balancing the pizza while he retrieved the keys.

“Thanks Philip.” A cough responded. He turned to open the door, but as he was turning the key, a thought struck him. He turned back. “Hey Phillip, do you know where Cecil went?”

The bush looked contemplative, although that could just have been the officer’s aura. “No, I only watch his house. Why, something up?”

Carlos sighed. “No, it’s probably nothing. He just missed dinner. Josie and Erika -- Who doesn’t exist!” he added hastily as the bush bristled. It relaxed, and he continued, “Well, they said I should just meet him here.”

“Well, I’ll call some of the other guys on the radio, see what’s up,” Philip replied, sounding cheerful. “He’s around somewhere, I’m sure.”

Carlos smiled. “Thanks, Philip, that means a lot.”

“Sure thing. Better get that pizza inside though, Mr. Scientist! Temperature’s supposed to drop tonight.” 

“Absolutely. Good night!” He slid inside to the sound of good night echoed back at him, pulled the door shut and headed to the kitchen. He deposited the pizza on the counter, quickly scribbled a note in crayon to the faceless old woman, letting her know she could have a piece or two if she wanted, and sat down to wait.

And now it had been over two hours, and he had stopped sitting, and had taken up pacing around the living room nervously. He had also taken to talking aloud to the faceless old woman, who would certainly get his vote if he were allowed to vote by the election day, simply for being so kind as to put up with all his worries. He could sense her, even if he couldn’t see her, even if she always hid just out of eyesight, and she was remarkably sympathetic about the whole thing.

“What on earth could be keeping him?” Carlos bemoaned yet again, running a hand nervously through his hair. “I mean, someone’s got to know where he is, right?”

He turned to where the woman had been standing, knowing she wouldn’t be there, and found a set of toothpicks on the living room table, arranged to spell “ERRANDS.” He sighed. 

“I know, but he was just going to pick up a book at the school! How could that go so wrong?” 

They both fell into relative silence, and he sensed her fall still for a moment. He didn’t need to turn when she was done spelling out her words to know what she was going to say, but out of respect he looked anyways. “REALLY?”

“It… yeah, it wasn’t really a good question…” he mumbled. “But still. Cecil knows the school pretty well. He went there for his whole education, and aside from the janitors revolting now and then, there’s nothing really big that happens there, right?” He heard the shifting cloth that meant a shrug. “So, he should have -”

The door slammed open, cutting him off. The faceless old woman slipped into the other room, well out of sight of whoever was coming in, and Carlos spun to face the newcomer. He stared, mouth falling slightly agape.

“...Cecil?”

The mess leaning against the closed door looked up, eyes wide. “...Carlos?”

“Cecil, what - Jesus, what happened to you?” He took a few steps towards Cecil, unwinding a bit, but halted just short. “Are you okay?”

Cecil sagged back against the door. His hair was in a state of disarray, along with his clothes, which were torn in places and coated in what looked like mud and what Carlos hoped was not his blood. His left arm hung at his side, too limp to be normal, while his right arm cradled something to his chest. He looked windswept and out of order, but his aura gave off merely confusion, a little pain, and a general sense of overwhelming resignation. “Carlos, what are you doing here?”

“I was waiting for you, Josie said you weren’t coming to Ricos… I texted you. What happened to you?”

“I uh…” Cecil swallowed, looking embarrassed and sheepish and tired, so tired. “It’s a bit of a story…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finals are coming up, school is wrapping up, and I'm not sure when the next chapter will be up. Expect it in a week and a half or so.


	3. Cecil's Day (Part 1)

Cecil went to work beaming, whistling chipperly to the grass along the side of the NVPR building, and it waved its tiny flagella and whistled back in harmony. He strode into the building, greeting the interns scattered throughout the building, sneaking past Station Management’s door with an airy step, unlocking his station door, and - 

finding it stuck shut.

He paused, tilting his head and observing the door, brow beginning to furrow, and tugged the door again. When it continued to not budge, he inspected the door for abnormalities, then caught an intern walking by.

“Gram?”

“Yes, Mr. Palmer?”

“Why is my door glued shut?”

Gram stopped short, red eyes glancing between Cecil and his door. “...your what?”

“My studio door,” Cecil repeated. “It’s glued shut.”

He stepped aside as Gram stepped up and inspected the crack. “Yeah, you’re right. That’s glue. Weird…”

“Who would glue my door shut?” the reporter asked, baffled. Gram looked just as confused.

“I dunno...” He tried the door, and found it just as stuck as Cecil had. “Pretty strong, too.”

Cecil opened his mouth to reply, but a loud, angry gurgle from behind Station Management’s door cut him off. He and Gram shared a wary, weary look.

“Best get it open, ASAP.”

“I’ll get more interns.”

\--

In the end, Sarah, a tiny will-o-the-wisp of a human being, manifested an enormous gorilla-like arm on xer back and punched the door in. Xe was quite embarrassed about the whole thing, especially when the other interns wouldn’t stop congratulating xer and complimenting xer strength. Cecil finally managed to shoo them all off to go gather news, assigning Sara the solitary task of weather selection, to give xer some breathing room. Xe gratefully slipped down the hall to the weather room, leaving Cecil alone. He stood, listening carefully to Station Management, and smiled with relief when he heard nothing. Gingerly stepping over the remains of the door, he entered his studio, taking in a deep breath of the scent of his second home, heavy with dust, time, and currently the faint smell of glue and broken wood. On his desk sat a pile of papers for him to begin sorting, and an old, old set of headphones. 

He was now two hours behind.

Sighing, he sat, beginning to decide what of what he had would be making the show tonight. He recorded a few new words from sponsors, typed up show segments, and still allowed himself a small smile when he thought about his morning. He was looking forward to dinner tonight. 

\--

The time cram had put Cecil in an odd place - He had been hoping to to call the school about a textbook for Carlos before his show started, but the hours and paperwork were working against him. So he started his show, hoping that there’d still be a teacher present when the weather came on. Despite being on radio, he tended to talk a lot with his hands, and his anxiousness made their motions even more exaggerated. He kept a firm eye on the schedule. As soon as he was able, he ran a few ads, prepped his phone, turned on the mic and solemnly announced, “And now: The Weather.” Soft violin flooded his headset, and he smiled as he took them off, appreciating Sarah’s meteorological taste. With a click, he rang up the school, spinning idly in his chair as he waited, hoping that someone would pick up. He began to lose hope after the fifth ring.

“Ni’ Var Publik Schoo’,” a gruff, clanking voice announced. Cecil sighed in relief.

“Thank goodness, I thought everyone had gone home. Is this the Janitor?”

“I’um don’ eva go home, mist’r,” the gruff voice replied. “A Jan’t’r keeps to the schoo’, keep thin’s clean. What kin I doferyu, Mist’r Palma?”

“I’m looking for a book...” Cecil began, checking the remaining time for the weather.

\--

The Janitor knew the book he was talking about, and promised to have a copy of it ready for him to borrow after the show. “Jus’ tuh barroh tho,” he snapped. “I kin tell thu teach’r, but its mah problum if’n you dun brin’ it back.”

He got into the car, feeling optimistic. Pleased that the Feeling Drop-Off had left him something so benign and useful, he drove off from the station towards the school. Afterwards, he’d head to Big Rico’s for a slice of pizza… then maybe to Carlos’ place for a slice of multidimensional scientist. 

The sun was still holding a low position in the sky, still deciding on whether to set. Carlos, once upon a time, would have found that infuriating, Cecil mused, but after a year in Night Vale he had stopped being so alarmed. He had hardly even flinched when it refused to rise for three days (if they could be called that without the sun). Currently, however, Cecil was appreciating the pleasant, late day heat as it bordered on an evening sun.

He was wondering what toppings to get at Big Rico’s that evening when he arrived at the school. He hopped out and left the car sputtering curse in the parking lot. He was just there to pick up a book, it was hardly going to take him long.

The front door was unlocked, and he slipped in, pausing a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkened hallways. When he could see well enough, he picked a direction and began walking, knowing that a person couldn’t be in a school long without being noticed and found by a Janitor. His footsteps echoed against the lockers and bar-windowed classrooms, eerie as the sunlight behind him slowly diminished with distance. Ahead, however he could see a light in one of the classrooms, and strode with purpose towards it. He rounded the corner into the room, and was immediately greeted by a dripping mop-head inches from his face.

“Ah!” he yelped, taking a quick step back. The mop waved, then moved aside, revealing a face obscured by scruffy black hair. 

“Hmm? Whozat?” it growled, a section of hair rising to reveal one rubber-eraser eye. Cecil relaxed.

“Oh Janitor, it’s you. I mean, it’s me, Cecil Gershwin-Palmer? I’m here to borrow that book?”

The Janitor harrumphed, spinning the mop so its head rested on the floor. “No can do, Mist’r Palma,” he growled. “Just got cleaned out. Donated.” 

Cecil stood, staring at the fuzzy faced man. “But- but I talked to you about them less than an hour ago! How did they get donated in that time?”

The Janitor just shrugged. “Ah wa’ told tuh box ‘em up an’ sen’ them out.”

This was a disappointing setback, but Cecil was still feeling Optimistic™. “Where was it donated?” he asked. “Maybe they’ll let me borrow it for awhile.” 

The furry faced man managed to pull an uncomfortable looking expression, reaching up with one padded hand to scratch at his nose. “Well, they’d let you borrow it,” he admitted, his voice not quite so growling now. “But, I’m not sure how much you want to ask.”

\--

Cecil sure was glad that optimism had not worn off - otherwise, this would be a really, really bad idea. Then, he wouldn’t have done it, and he would have had to go to Rico’s, now late, without the book he had promised. 

Still, all the optimism in the world could have gotten him through the double doors any faster. He was no Tamika Flynn, after all.

“They were just donated,” he reasoned, fiddling with the bowie knife he usually kept in his dashboard as he stared at the doors. “They’re probably still in the box, just past the circulation desk.” He took a few steps forward. “It’ll be easy,” he continued. “I probably won’t even see a librarian.” A few more steps. Now he could reach out and grab the big, arching door handle. “And I won’t be long. I’ll only be a little later, and then I’ll have the book, for my dear, sweet Carlos.”

That significantly strengthened his resolve, and he firmly readied his knife, squared his shoulders, and grabbed the door handle.

The door swung open silently, well greased for the safety of book lovers everywhere. Inside was a beautiful library, wide with shelves and beautiful hand crafted wooden tables, lit by smaller lamps for excellent mood lighting. A sweeping staircase looped around the circular entrance room, leading up to the balcony and the second floor, and in the distance, Cecil could see the research section with its harsher fluorescent lighting. More importantly, however, from his vantage point in the doorway, he could see a straight shot to the circulation desk.

The reporter took a deep breath, trying the air. It was clear, only the faint scent of books. Good. It would only take him a few seconds over, a minute tops to locate the book, and a few seconds back out.

He took another deep breath, placed the knife in his teeth (blade out, of course) and took off. His footsteps echoed across the large room, and he jumped as he approached the circulation desk, launching over the counter and landing behind it. 

He froze, listening carefully, hardly daring to breathe. The echoes of his footsteps began to fade, but they were eclipsed by a sudden, heavy thud that caused him to start violently. But a second later he realized the source.

‘The door,’ he thought. It had fallen shut behind him, in his haste. He cursed silently, moving to peek over the desk, but another sound froze him in his tracks. In the distant fiction section, growing louder every second, a shushing sound. He ducked back under the desk, praying to the void, as the sound ended in the area of the door. That awful rattle sounded a few times, probably as it searched around the door. Cecil held his breath, knowing that the cloying popurri smell would begin now that it was nearby. Finally, after what felt like hours, the tell-tale rattle shushed off down towards research.

He allowed himself to breathe again, and almost gagged at the stench. Rottingly sweet flowers and fruit peels filled his sinuses like the mirage of an army in the sand wastes, and he choked silently for a moment before getting himself under control. He looked around the desk area, and laid eyes on a taped box labeled NVMS. Crouching, he went over to it, using his knife to carefully cut the tape, and opened it up. He sighed in relief and validation, pulling out a clean copy of “Pandimensionality 101 - the Nth Dimension and YOU!”

“Now to just get out,” he murmured to himself, tucking the book in the crook of his arm. 

“Do you have your library card, sonny?” an older, male voice asked from above him. 

Instinct took over, and he barrel-rolled off to the side. Where he had been sitting dropped three tons of long legs, snaking arms, and seeking face. It screamed in fury at missing its target, but Cecil wasn’t about to stick around to see what it would do next. He scrambled to his feet and quickly measured his options. Currently, the librarian (still squirming from its jump from the balcony, that would buy him some time) stood between him and the door. He wouldn’t go down towards research, there was another one there. So he picked the best option, clutching his book and knife, and took off towards the children’s section. 

They must have librarian repellant down that way, he rationalized, for the kids. He could hear the scraping of its feet across the ground, the vicious ssssSSSHHHH growing louder behind him as it shook its terrible rattles. The air began to stink of rotting fruit peels, and he darted into another row of shelves, switching back and forth to lose his pursuer. 

Librarians couldn’t handle tight corners. Everyone knew that.

He could see the kid’s section now, complete with fortified areas and repellant dispensers. Behind him sounded a crash and an angry yowl as his pursuer missed a turn. Cecil grinned, despite the sweat pouring down his face, his sides heaving with the effort of his run. He was going to make it!

As he dashed between two sets of shelves, however, he caught something coming from his left in his peripheral. He tried to dodge, pull short, but his momentum couldn’t be slowed, and a few tons of librarian body checked him, sending him flying down the row of shelves to collide with Young Adult’s Fiction. He dropped to the floor, too dazed to notice he had dropped his knife in the attack, or to feel the small trickle of blood from his temple. The shushing noise of the librarian’s rattles seemed distant and echoey, but the awful perfumed smell dragged him back, gagging, to find two librarians, drawn up to full height looming over him. He swallowed heavily. 

And the optimism from the Feelings Drop wore off.

\--

Frankly, he wasn't sure what happened after that. The librarians had attacked, and he had tried to fend them off as best he could with nothing but books from the shelves behind him. He had been grabbed with teeth by the arm and launched with a vicious twist of the librarian's neck into another set of shelves. This time, however, between the awful sickly smell and the blunt force trauma, he began to see spots at the edges of his vision.

' _That's it,_ ' he thought, head swimming. ' _I'm done for. Stupid,_ Stupid _Cecil!_ ' 

But before he blacked out, he heard something screaming a war-cry in the distance, and the last thing he saw was the retreating backsides of the two librarians.


	4. Cecil's Day (Part 2) Or, Cecil Finally Gets A Slice of Big Rico's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cecil finally gets what he's been searching for, and his terrible day ends.

Cecil felt the pain first, oh masters why couldn’t he have been born without pain receptors, that would have been so preferable to this ache that was currently his entire body.

The next thing he felt was void on his eyelids, and the chilly breeze of a desert night over his face. He was outside. That was odd, why would he be asleep outside, hadn’t he gone to sleep in - 

Oh. Right.

He lay still for a time, just breathing quietly, listening. He was on his back, outside, in the dirt. That was a marked improvement from on the floor of the library, certainly about to die. But if that was where he had been, how had he gotten here?

There was a sound to his right, one that he quickly identified as footsteps. Small ones. He slowly opened his eyes (and even those ached!), turning his head slightly. There, hanging off the earth sideways, feet held only by gravity to this spinning planet, stood a young, fearsome looking girl. She had two large books under one arm, and a familiar looking bowie knife in her other hand. Her eyes blazed from her dark face, not with the lightness of color, but with the bloodlust of a good fight. But what really gave her away was the disembodied hand with its spindly fingers that hung from a rope around her neck. 

“Tamika Flynn,” Cecil tried to say, but it came out strangled and wheezy, and his burned at the effort. She stared at him, then carefully put down her books and studied the bowie knife.

“This is really nice,” she said idly. “Do you mind if I borrow it? There were a few other books that I wanted to check out, and this worked really nicely.” In the moonlight, Cecil could see the inky blood of a librarian sliding down the blade. Not trusting his voice, he nodded. She smiled - or tried to smile, it looked somewhat feral - down at him. “Thanks, I ‘preciate it.” She toed the books with one foot. “I grabbed your book for you… well, I didn’t know which one was the one you wanted, so I just grabbed ‘em both.”

Slowly, he pushed himself up into a sitting position, wincing at the numerous protests his body made (things like, why did you get us thrown into a shelf? and, oh sweet horrifying void why is there so much blood in a human being? Why is there so little now?) and reached for one of the books. She picked it up and handed it to him. 

“Pandimensionality 101” the title cheerfully informed him, and he sighed in relief. “Thank you,” he croaked, voice feeling somewhat better now that he was properly awake. She shrugged.

“Readers gotta stick together. It’s out in my name, though, so get ‘em back by the due date. I know where you work.” 

“Absolutely,” he replied, leaning over to pick up the other book and inspect it. Night Vale Public School Yearbook. Odd.

“Well, if that’s that, I have to go find La Guerra de Guerrillas before they close for the night. Thanks for the knife.” Cecil looked up to find her trotting briskly back to the doors, throwing them open and slamming them shut defiantly. Screams, and definitely not hers, could be heard through the lower barred windows.

Shakily, Cecil pushed himself to his feet. From his new vantage point, he could see the marks in the dirt from the door of the library to where he had been lying where Tamika had presumably dragged him out. 

He’d be extra thankful with his next bloodstone chant.

As he limped back to his car, glad to find he hadn’t lost his keys, something hit him. She had said “before they close.” How late was it? 

He dropped the books into the passengers seat, and turned the key, waiting for it to start up and the dashboard clock to light up.

It informed him, with blocky lined lights forming numbers, that he was now hours late for his date with Carlos, and that Big Rico’s would be, in fact, closed.

He slumped in the seat, resting his head in his good hand, cradling the other arm in his lap. “This has not been my day,” he groaned softly to himself, massaging his temple. He’d have to find some way to make it up to Carlos, he’d have to. And he’d now missed his mandatory slice of Big Rico’s, so he’d probably be hearing about that from Philip to boot. Everything had just fallen apart this evening.

“Well,” he sighed to himself, pulling his hand away and leaning back into the seat and putting his car in gear, “no sense crying over forgotten re-educations.” Carefully, favoring his injured arm, he backed out of the parking lot and began to drive home. “And at least I got the-”

Sirens kicked up behind him, cutting off his monologue, and he almost banged his head on his steering wheel in frustration. A glance behind him told him that, yep, he was the one being chased down by the SSP. He gritted his teeth angrily.

“This,” he bit out to no one in particular, “Is just not. My. Night.” And he pulled his parking break, using the sudden force to pull a 180, shooting past the officer’s car in the opposite direction. 

The chase was on. The officer was quick to recover, probably as part of his or her training, and pulled a quick u-turn, but by that point Cecil had switched gears and was moving at a fast clip away. He checked the street name as he raced by the first sign, doing some quick calculations in his head, then taking a sharp left, wincing as the motion of steering caused a bolt of pain to shoot through his arm. There were fortunately no cars on the road at the time, although if there had been they would have gotten out of the way for the pursuer and the pursuee as they shot around town.

Cecil was pushing dangerously close to the speed limit now, a hasty 70 mph, and the SSP officer behind him was slowly gaining. Cecil checked the next street sign, almost missing its white painted letters. “Almost there,” he gritted out. Behind him, gunshots started, and he didn’t have to look to know they were narrowly missing his car. He took another left into a narrow alleyway between two buildings, jumping in surprise and swerving slightly when his (covered) driver’s side mirror suddenly exploded into glass shards outside his window. The other mirror was scraped off by the wall, thanks to his swerve, and he was quick to correct it, straightening out and bursting from the alley, tires squealing as he yanked the wheel, left again. 

He crossed three more streets, when looming up in the night came the sudden red glare of a traffic light. Mentally, he calculated his path again, and made a decision.

He came to a careful, controlled stop at the light. The SSP car rolled up next to him, and he was quick to roll his window down.

“That’s fine, Mr. Palmer,” the officer called through her open window. “Pull over, please.”

“Sure,” he replied as pleasantly as he could, given how his body was screaming at him to stop and rest. The light turned green, and he crossed the street before pulling off, and the officer pulled off behind him. He turned off his car and waited for her to reach his window.

“What can I do for you, officer,” he asked, trying to inject enough energy into his voice to sound like a helpful citizen, and not an exhausted, hurting, cranky radio host. Her frown through the hole in her black leather balaklava told him he had not succeeded. Her tone was more gentle though.

“It’s just a small thing, Mr. Palmer. Nice turns, there, though. That must have been hard to do with your arm that way.”

Cecil forced a laugh. “Well, it’s important that citizens perform their best when they do the mandatory 3 minute car chase before pulling over.”

“Well it was impressive. Keep us on our toes. But why I pulled you over,” and she pointed past him, to the passenger’s seat, “was that.”

He followed her gaze to the books resting there. “The… books?”

“Specifically, Pandimensionality 101. Mr. Palmer, what are your intentions with that book?”

He turned back to her, openly baffled. “To… To show it to Carlos?”

“I see. And what does Mr. the Scientist want with it?”

“To… read it?”

“Why?”

Cecil must have stared, because the line of her mouth thinned and she repeated her question more sharply. “He- he never had any sort of education on the topic, and he’s pandimensional, so I got him a copy to study from. Just, you know, Standard Night Vale Education stuff.”

“So you’re not going to read it?”

“No? I mean, I’ve already taken the class, I already know this stuff.”

She nodded slowly, still not looking convinced. Sensing that she might confiscate the book, and undo all of his hard work this evening, he pressed the point. “See, outside of Night Vale, they don’t teach anything about pandimensional beings, so he had a really poor education on it, which is a horrible fault of those schools. They should really take a hint from our very superior education system. But I was just going to give it to him.” She nodded, a little more agreeably this time, and he put the final nail in the coffin. “And, if you were to take it from me, you’d have to bring it back to the library.”

That must have sold her on it. Her lips thinned again, but now the edges were turned up into a near smile. “You’re right, it's important that our resident Scientist have important Night Vale education on a topic like that,” she responded, acting as though she hadn’t heard that last point. But!” and she leaned forward, presumably narrowing her eyes at him from behind her leather balaklava, “if we find out that you are reading it, Mr. Palmer, we will have to confiscate it. Mr. Scientist’s education, or not.”

“Understood,” he replied smiling with relief. She nodded, and gave him an actual smile. 

“Really though, those turns were quite impressive. You should come down to the driving range sometime, give the newbies something to practice with.” She took a step back and inspected the broken mirror. “That’ll need to be fixed though. You can submit a form for reimbursement at City Hall, if you want.”

He shook his head. “I never use them anyways. I prefer to trust my own eyes.” 

“Don’t always trust them,” she intoned ominously, then lighter, “Would you like an escort back? Looks like you’ve had a rough night.”

Cecil thought for a moment, about everything that had gone on that day, and about everything that could possibly go awry on his way home. “Definitely,” he said firmly.

“Alright then. Mr. Palmer, follow me.”

\--

He waved at the retreating SSP car before stooping to grab the two books from the car with his good arm, heading up the stairs to his door. There was a faint snoring from the fire hydrant in front of his house, and he was silently jealous of Philip, sound asleep while the person he was supposed to be watching snuck into his own house. ‘Tomorrow,’ Cecil thought to himself, somewhat harshly, ‘I will send in a report about it. Negligence, that’s what it is.’

He wasn’t paying much attention as he opened the door, not to the fact that it was unlocked, or that his lights were on, which was probably fortunate. If he had stopped to think about it, he might have foreseen it as signs of even more trouble, and avoided it. As he sunk back against the door, however, a most beautiful sound reached his ears.

“...Cecil?”

\--

Carlos might have listened silently through Cecil’s story, but he certainly wasn’t still. After Cecil forced the books into his hands, he led Cecil into the kitchen, supporting him gently with the barest touches of shadow underneath and behind him, sit him in a chair, and got him a slice of pizza. Cecil devoured it, and several more gratefully during a break in his story, then continued as Carlos pulled out a first aid kit, removed Cecil’s shirt, and began to inspect the wound on his boyfriend’s arm.

He was just finishing disinfecting it (Cecil insisted that librarian bites were not poisonous, but Carlos was extra thorough, regardless) when Cecil finished talking, and simply leaned back in his chair, utterly boneless with exhaustion. Carlos took care of bandaging the wound, then carried him back to the bedroom. The faceless old lady had kindly fluffed the pillows and turned down the blankets for him, and Carlos helped him into pajamas and under the covers. Cecil sighed with relief as he got comfortable in the sheets, nearly asleep already. Carlos quickly slipped out of the room to grab the book, tell the faceless old woman to help herself to pizza and not to worry about the mess, he’d clean it in the morning, and returned to the room. Cecil was already snoring softly, so he turned on his smaller bedside lamp, changed for bed, and lay down next to Cecil with the book.

Carlos didn’t sleep much that night - he was too engrossed in reading his book, petting Cecil’s hair to calm him when he had rough dreams, and plotting how to ensure Cecil never went to the library again.

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've been really cranking these chapters out! This past week has probably been my busiest, although this week won't far behind. After that, though, it's finals (most of which are papers and hand-ins) and then like half a week to graduation!
> 
> Long story short, the next chapter will probably wrap Pandimensionality 101 up, and then I'll start work on the final piece of the Pandimensionality Trio: ...okay I don't actually have a name for it yet. In the works.
> 
> Regardless! A special thanks to Umbreon and The Black Sluggard - seeing your names pop up in my inbox makes my day. And thank you to everyone who leaves kudos! It's what feeds me spiritually in this dark college time.


	5. And then there was Science

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos comes out of the multidimensional closet to his team. Science happens, and a specialist is reached.

Learning about himself, oddly enough, taught Carlos so much more about Night Vale. The majority of the population had some level of multidimensionalism to them, something that Carlos had even been looking forward to when he first arrived. It hadn’t occurred to him to check how citizens interacted with each other on a daily basis, and to see if it was different for the fully human and the not-fully-human. 

Thank the void he was a scientist, and not a sociologist. 

That said, reading ‘Pandimensionality 101’ was fascinating. And a little embarrassing. It had been written by a Night Vale citizen (although her name and everything else about her had been redacted in the “About the Author” section) and so it had included a lot of information about local pandimensional customs, most of which Carlos had had no way of knowing prior. This led to the awkward realization that, although everyone had been very gracious about it, he had been very rude in ways that he had never even considered. His behavior and etiquette, as a result, quickly became much better - he greeted the ephemeral forms of the silent, dead eyed city council children, avoided staring at auras that appeared to have no owners, and greeted Erika, Erika, Erika, Erika and Josie every time he saw them in the Ralphs. Erika was usually at home. He still wasn’t sure how he could tell them apart.

He began projecting and receiving information on several dimensions, with much practice, and began to understand why and how the city council, SSP and mayoral systems functioned the way they did. While they looked draconian from a non-dimensional standpoint, they were much looser in other dimensions, allowing for more free information exchange. Only slightly, of course. The SSP were pretty good about keeping tabs on everyone, and now he was realizing just how important that was.

It made sense. A chapter on History of Pandimensional Beings in our Tiny Mortal Realm outlined unfortunate encounters, much like the very few Carlos had experienced outside of Night Vale. But it also described interactions between pandimensionals that had leveled cities, wiped minds, erased entire civilizations and reduced their citizens to slavering cannibalistic monstrosities (although Carlos was suspect of anything that cited “Atlantis, ?????”). That level of antagonizing between dimensions had enormous consequences, and Night Vale had struck a tenuous, harmonious balance, allowing people like himself to coexist with other multi-dimensionals and single-dimensionals.

Cecil seemed thrilled with his progress through the book, although the reporter was careful never to be in the room whenever Carlos was reading it. He had bounced back from his injuries in typical Night Valean fashion, healing quickly over the next few days until the gashes from the librarian’s teeth were just another set of marks on him, showing how he had survived yet again. Carlos insisted on taking extra special care of him the first day or so, until Cecil shooed him off, reminding him of the much more impressive scars and insisting that they’d heal just the same. But things, to Carlos, seemed to quickly settle back into place.

It wasn’t until his team pointed it out that he noticed. “Hey, Carlos,” Anthony called, flipping through a series of typewriter notes. “Can I ask you something?”

“Uh-huh,” Carlos replied distractedly, focusing on the microscope slide and trying to dial the sample of puke green glitter he had found in his car engine into focus. It was fascinating, as the car was still running fine. He was trying to examine its structure before he went about checking its combustibility. Maybe it didn’t work the same way…?

“Where did you get all this information from?”

“Yeah, okay.” He adjusted the dials again, peering into the scope. A paper ball bounced off the back of his head. “Wh- Sorry, what?”

“I said,” Anthony repeated, “where did you get all this information from? I’ve hardly seen you leave the lab the past few days, but here you’ve got interviews about the neon lights emanating from the sewers on Tuesdays from like, half the town.” 

“Uh…” Carlos shuffled the papers on his desk, searching for an easy answer. He hadn’t exactly come out to his team on the whole existing across several planes of space-time (or non-space-time, or space-non-time… there were a lot of categories), and he wasn’t exactly sure how they would take it… or if they were even allowed to know. He shot a glance at the air vent overhead.

“Hey Sandy?” he called. There was a moment of silence, then one loud clang. “Am I allowed to talk to my team about that textbook I’ve been reading?”

A pause. The sound of rats shuffling about. “...yes, so long as nothing is mentioned to Mr. Palmer,” Sandy announced, her voice echoing slightly from the grate. 

“Of course,” Carlos replied. Anthony raised an eyebrow.

“A textbook?”

“Yeah.” Carlos turned to clean up his glitter sample. “Tell the team, meeting in ten, okay? I’ve got something you guys should know.”

\--

Carlos had been in Night Vale for well over a year, now. He had become accustomed to seeing non-humans walking down the street everyday, albeit usually in human form. He hadn’t forgotten about his experiences outside of Night Vale, but his time here, and especially his time with Cecil, had faded the memory and painted over it with fonder memories.

That said, he probably should have told his team about this sooner.

“You’re a what,” Gretchen deadpanned, staring at him from across the conference table.

“A pandimensional being,” Carlos repeated. “It turns out, it’s a common thing here. So common, in fact,” he added, reaching out to tap the textbook, “there’s a class on it at the high school.”

Blank stares continued. He sighed. “Look, I’m still the same guy. I’m just… branching out, I guess? Learning more about myself.” Still only silence from his colleagues. “So…”

Everyone jumped at the sudden scraping sound, as Ramona abruptly stood. She locked eyes with Carlos, opened and closed her mouth a few times in a visual search for words, then turned and walked out. They could only watch her go.

Finally, Anthony cleared his throat. “I think… well, Carlos, I think this is a lot to take in.” The remaining three scientists nodded and murmured agreement.

“I understand.” Carlos pushed the book towards them. “Give this a read - just skim it if you don’t have the time. It explains a surprising amount about Night Vale.”

“Does it explain the people who live in the place that rhymes with “Frog Bark?” Suzanne asked. 

“Uh… no, those people are… still a mystery.”

Suzanne looked disappointed, then perked up again. “Have you done any studies on yourself?”

“I… have not, actually,” he replied, surprised with himself. Usually, that would have been his first thought, but he had avoided thinking about it outside of Night Vale, and in Night Vale he had been too preoccupied with just about everything else. “It uh, never occurred to me.”

The scientists all stared at him, one or two eyebrows raised judgingly. Carlos fidgeted. “What? I just didn’t think about it!”

Suzanne stood, biting her lip thoughtfully, then slowly asked, “...Can we?” She looked at Carlos, then at the rest of them. “I mean, is it ethical?” she amended, “testing your senior scientist?”

As usual, they looked to Carlos, who stood there, mulling it over. Outside of Night Vale, it would probably be unethical to run tests on the head of the team, but really, it was rare that the head was pandimensional, too. Inside Night Vale, the rules of ethics were… well, flexible, but he and his team still prided themselves on their standards.

But it couldn’t hurt, could it? Besides, he was the head of the team. He’d know what the studies were for, and he trusted them. And better him than one of the townsfolk. “Uh, sure, I think that would be okay-”

He was embarrassed to say that he was the only one who flinched when the packet of papers hit the table, falling from the air vent with a loud thump. All four scientists stared at it silently, until Anthony slowly reached out and picked up the top sheet to read.

“Form… Modified Sumerian symbols…” he muttered, then cleared his throat. “Ah. Form for submission of self as a scientistic subject.” He looked up, furrowing his brow. “Scientistic?”

Carlos picked up the rest of the packet, over thirty pages, and flipped through it. “Yeah, this is going to take a while…” He accepted the top sheet from Anthony, and looked at the rest of the group. “So, if this is something you actually want to look into, I’ll start filling this out. You guys should read through that,” he nodded to the book, “and when we’re done, we’ll get started. Questions, comments, concerns?”

“What coding are we giving this research?” asked Mark, who had been quiet up to this point. Everyone looked thoughtful.

“High interest, low severity?” suggested Suzanne.

“So, pastel-magenta?” Anthony said. Carlos shrugged.

“I’m not going anywhere, so…:

“Alright.” Mark pulled out a post-it, dipping a toothpick in ink and making a note. 

“What about Ramona?” Gretchen asked, pointedly nodding towards the door. “Someone should check in with her, see what she’s thinking.”

And again, all eyes were on Carlos. “You think I should go talk to her?” he asked, voice small. “I mean, given that I’m the pandimensional one, I think one of you would be better. You know, less…” he hesitated for lack of a word. “Less different.”

“Carlos, you haven’t suddenly become someone else just because you told us a new fact about yourself,” Gretchen snapped. “You haven’t even done anything particularly weird for Night Vale. She probably needs a familiar face, and probably needs a reminder that you’re not going to just change over this. So yes. You should go talk to her. We’ll start on,” she picked up the book, glancing at the title, “Pandimensionality 101.”

There was no arguing with Gretchen, and the rest of them were already scooting over to look at the book, so Carlos took the packet and headed out to find Ramona.

His search was short lived. He made a cursory round through the lab, and found one of the two bathroom doors shut. He walked over to it and gently knocked.

“Uh, Ramona?” he called. “It’s Carlos. I, uh, just wanted to see how you were doing. Everything okay?”

He waited for an answer, and was about to knock again when the door cracked open. He stepped back as Ramona peered out, then opened the door with a sigh. Her eyes looked puffy and red, to his surprise. Fear, he could understand. Anger or disgust, yeah, he had… been there before. But crying? “Hey, you alright?”

Ramona ran a hand over her eyes, nodding. She took a deep, shuddering breath before looking up at Carlos, a tight smile on her face. “Yeah, boss, I’m okay. Sorry about that, I just…” her eyes started to shine again, and she blinked back more tears. “Sorry.”

Carlos shifted awkwardly. He wasn’t much of a people person - he studied science. But he was also the leader of this team. “Do - would you like to talk about it?”

She shook her head again, face firm as she got her emotions back under control. “No, I… I just need a minute.” She took another deep breath. “This has nothing to do with you, okay Carlos? I just…” she rubbed her eyes again. “Sorry, it just reminded me of something. It’s cool that you’re, what? Pandimensional?” she closed her eyes, composing herself. “Phew. Yeah.” she opened her eyes and fixed him with a more relaxed smile. “I’m okay. So what’s going on now?”

“Well, everyone else is in the other room, skimming the book, and then if nothing too crazy is happening, we’re going to run some tests. I was just going to fill out this,” he hefted the stack of papers, and she gave him a thinner, sympathetic smile, “so we could get started as soon as possible. They’re thinking of making it a Pastel-Magenta.”

Ramona nodded, straightening herself out. Carlos hesitated. “You… Are you sure you’re okay?” 

She laughed, waving a hand at him. “Yes, Carlos, I’m fine. I’m sorry I worried you, it’s just…” her laughter trailed off, and she bit her lower lip, thinking. “It’s just not something I feel comfortable sharing right now. I’m fine.” She patted him on the shoulder. “You should probably get a start on that - we’re all pretty fast readers!” 

And with that, she took off, walking briskly back to the break room and leaving Carlos more confused than before. He sighed, glancing up at the vent grate. “You wouldn’t happen to know what that was about, would you?”

The vent sputtered and coughed up a cloud of dust. Confidential. He shook his head. “Yeah, I thought as much,” he muttered, heading over to his desk to find a feather and some crushed cactus-flower dye. He had to start on that paperwork sometime.

\--

“Pamela Winchel.”

“Yes.”

“Tamika Flynn.”

“Don’t think so.”

“Really? Huh. Okay then. Hiram McDaniels.”

Carlos stopped what he was doing, turning to look at Mark. “No, I’m pretty sure he is literally just a five-headed dragon.” Both men winced as an empty beaker fell off the lab bench and shattered. “None of us can vote,” Carlos said loudly to the lab. Gretchen, walking in, gave them a weird look.

Carlos shrugged. “He asked about Hiram.”

Gretchen nodded understandingly. “I don’t know why you’d vote for a five-headed dragon anyway.” She turned to her white board just in time to see the makeshift marker drop from the words ‘I KNOW, RIGHT?’ She frowned at the missing section. “I also wouldn’t vote for someone who erases my notes,” she added snipilly, erasing the message. Carlos didn’t know why the faceless old woman who lived in the lab was such a busybody, nor why she (one?) lived in the lab to begin with, but what could you do. “So, how did Hiram come up?”

“Mark’s asking about who’s pandimensional and who’s not,” Carlos informed her, moving back to the task at hand. 

“Isn’t that kind of rude?”

“Well, it’s kind of like common knowledge? We didn’t know because it’s not obvious, mostly.”

“You mean we didn’t know,” Gretchen replied, finishing her notes. “You knew.” She capped the marker, turned back around, and stared. “What are you two doing?”

Carlos finished applying the electrodes to his arm, Mark working on checking the safeties. “Mark was reading the physiological section of 101, and he wanted to test some stuff.”

Gretchen raised an eyebrow. “So you’re electrocuting yourself?”

“It’s just a small shock,” Mark argued, turning towards her. “And we’ll get to see what Carlos really looks like.”

That embarrassed Carlos somewhat, though he couldn’t say why. “This is what I really look like, too,” he grumbled.

“You know what I mean, boss.” He flicked the machine on, and it hummed. “Ready?” Carlos nodded, closing his eyes and flexing his fingers. “Okay, mild shock, human form, 2 seconds.” He flicked the switch, and Carlos jumped at the brief pulse of current through his arm. “You good?” Mark asked, flicking it off.

“Yeah, just surprising.”

“Okay, next level then.”

Gretchen had pulled up a lab stool, and was resting her elbow on one of the tables. “So, what’s your method?”

“Checking his reactions to shocks increasing to the point of discomfort or pain, depending on Carlos. Then repeating, while ‘Manifested’.”

“How manifested? Aren’t there different degrees?”

“We may not be able to do it fully manifested,” Carlos explained, wincing as Mark announced the next shock up and flipped the switch. “My form starts to get less corporeal at that point.”

“Seriously?” Gretchen couldn’t keep the note of interest out of her voice. “Like, a ghost?”

“More like smoke… Ow!” 

Mark looked up from his notes. “That one hurt?”

Carlos shook his hand slightly, trying not to dislodge the electrodes while simultaneously getting rid of the buzzing sensation in his arm. “No, still just surprising. What voltage are we at?”

“Uh,” Mark looked back at the machine. “60 mA of direct current. Still below the average threshold of pain. Keep going?”

“Yeah, let’s give it one more and see where we are.”

“Alright.” Mark flipped another switch. “We’re at 70 mA, just past the pain threshold. Go.”

This time, Carlos gave an undignified yelp, arm spasming of its own accord. Gretchen raised one eyebrow.

“Are you still sure about this experiment, Carlos?” Mark rolled his eyes. 

“We’re only going until he says stop, and then we’re switching over,” he said, “And your comments are probably going to add bias to our research by making him overstress himself.” He turned back to Carlos. “Another shock, or manifesting?”

“Manifesting, definitely.” Carlos’s hair was standing on end now, and his entire arm felt tingly. “That was, um, just past the threshold for pain, for me. May want to mark that.”

“Noted,” Mark replied, dipping the toothpick again. “Should we switch arms to avoid retest bias?”

“That’s a good idea,” Gretchen pitched in. “It’ll let him ground for a minute, too.” She stood. “Need some help with the electrodes?”

“Yeah, it’s my dominant hand,” Carlos replied, carefully pulling off one of the wires from the gel. Mark jotted down a few more notes while Gretchen helped Carlos re-apply the electrodes, this time to the other arm. 

It took them a few minutes, and Mark waited patiently as Gretchen (carefully) and Carlos (clumsily) applied the electrodes, although it went quicker after Gretchen shooed away Carlos’s help, saying he was messing it up more than anything. When they were all applied, she stepped back and reclaimed her stool. Mark took a small step back himself. Carlos pretended not to notice.

“So, do you want me full-body manifested, or just my arm?” 

“Um… do you think it’ll make a difference?”

Carlos shrugged. “I’ve never done this before. It’s all new to me.” 

“Okay then… uh, lets start with just your arm then. The way the electrodes are set up, it should only affect your arm anyways, so… yeah. Lets do that.”

“Alright.” Carlos took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, allowing his arm to unravel into semi-solid shadow. He was careful to keep a more solid surface under the line of electrodes, but he wasn’t surprised by the sudden intake of breath from his coworkers at the sight.

“Whoa,” Mark breathed, staring wide-eyed at his arm. Carlos waited patiently as he and Gretchen examined the shadowy appendage, although Gretchen was better at pretending she wasn’t staring. After what felt like an appropriate amount of time to spend ogling your boss’s arm, he carefully cleared his throat, jarring his coworkers out of there scientistic (scientific!) reverie.

“Whenever you’re ready, Mark,” he said pointedly. His… appendage wiggled in a way that human arms certainly wouldn’t have been able to. Mark shuffled his papers and moved his hands across the switches, busying himself to stave off the embarrassment. 

“Right, right, sorry. Uh…” He checked the notes again. “Starting at… 10 mA of direct current. Ready?”

“Yeah, whenever you’re ready.” He relaxed himself in preparation for the shock. There was a click, and then Mark’s voice. 

“And, that was 10. Any difference from before?”

“Uh, are you sure? I didn’t feel anything.”

Mark stared at him, then quickly picked up his toothpick. “Well, that’s certainly a difference,” he mumbled. “Alright, next level!”

\--

Ramona practically flew into the lab, struggling to keep ahold of her papers as she adjusted her glasses, eyes bright with excitement. “Guys, you won’t believe this, I’ve been talking around with some people and it looks like one of the reasons that… they…” she trailed off as she slowed, halting near Mark’s testing site. “Wh-what are you doing?”

“Ramona!” Mark called, hidden behind the enormous pandimensional mass that was (presumably, Ramona thought) Carlos. “You will not believe this, Carlos is up to three times what is lethal for a human, and you may want to step back but he can’t even feel a thing!” 

“Hey Ramona,” Carlos rumbled, finding it somewhat difficult to speak when his lungs were, largely, not lungs. “What were you saying?”

“I, uh…” she fiddled with her glasses again, one of the papers falling loose as she looked at her boss. “Yeah. I was talking to some people, and I think I’ve figured out the discrepancy between unidimensional and pandimensional communication. So, whereas people like Carlos can just reach out kind of physically on other planes to communicate, unidimensional people can actually access these levels as well, with practice and focus through astral projection.” She looked up at the rest of them. “We’ve been missing out on so. much. data, people.”

Gretchen, Mark and Carlos were silent, processing the implications. “It’s like another language,” Gretchen eventually marveled. “If everyone in town can talk this way - “

“And they can,” Ramona confirmed.

“ - then this is…” she trailed off into silence, just imagining the scientific implications, the tests that would have to be run. She leveled Carlos with a look. “We need a communications specialist.”

\--

“Cecil, I am not calling for personal reasons,” Carlos announced when his boyfriend picked up the phone. 

“And what does science require of me today?” the radio host asked, not sounding at all put out. Carlos smiled.

“My team and I have had a breakthrough in how to be more efficient in science, but we need someone who specializes in communication here in Night Vale. Would you know anybody who might be interested?”

“Hmmm, well, I know a certain radio host who majored in communication with a focus on radio and aural medias, who might be persuaded by a certain handsome scientist to leave writing his show for a little to help you out.”

“Would you mind asking this certain radio host to come over to our lab and help us out? I’m sure a certain…” he glanced over his shoulder at his expectant team, suddenly embarrassed, “a certain scientist could -”

“For the love of quarks, Carlos, stop flirting and ask him to come over already!” Gretchen snapped in exasperation. Carlos flushed, but Cecil laughed over the phone.

“I’ll be right over,” he promised, “not for personal reasons.” And the line clicked.

\--

The new goal of the day was for the unidimensional members of the group to learn how to communicate via astral projection, or as Cecil called it, aurally. Apparently had nothing to do with hearing, here. Since Carlos could already communicate on these levels, he had the task of taking notes as the rest of his team sat around and learned how to project themselves. 

Cecil was not a good teacher - he had a tendency to wax poetic more often than not, and while he could describe what to do in a variety of ways, statements like “It will feel like the shucking of an unending imaginary corn husk, shelling away layers and layers until you have left your body and reached the inner kernel of truth or non-truth” were not necessarily easy for his team to relate to. What he lacked in his direction, however, he made up in patience. He took the frustration of the scientists in his stride and iterated and reiterated whatever lesson he was trying to impart to them, eventually leading to a request for a demonstration. 

“Well, I’m not sure how much you’ll actually be able to learn from watching,” Cecil said, but there was a thoughtful look in his eye. “But maybe hearing it… that actually might help.” He had been standing and walking around most of the time, but now he snagged a chair and sat, pulling himself towards the table. “So, like I’ve said, most important thing is to get a position you’re comfortable in. Since I usually do this in the studio, my position is sitting at my desk like so.” His posture was nearly impeccable, with a slight lean forward, elbows on the desk and fingers templed. Carlos could easily imagine a microphone in front of him. “Next step is to ignore your surroundings. I’ve had enough practice to be able to do this with my eyes open, but when you’re new at this its much easier to cover your eyes with your hands or eyelids.” His own lids slid shut as he spoke, and he took a deep breath. “The next part will probably be the hardest, but you just need to focus on not being in your body anymore. Just allow yourself to… let it…” _go…_

Everyone jumped at the last word - no, not word, sensation. Carlos shut his own eyes, allowing his other vision to focus, and came to a very uncomfortable sight. He knew Cecil was sitting right in front of him, but the aura that usually surrounded it, those beautiful lively colors were completely gone. He swallowed uncomfortably, before a tap on his shoulder made him turn his head. 

The Faceless Old Woman pointed to one of his teammates, Anthony, whose aura was both intrigued and playful. Carlos frowned in confusion, before realizing that the playfulness was not, in fact, Anthony, but Cecil’s free floating aura behind him. It moved from him, to Mark, Gretchen, Suzanne, Anthony, and Ramona in order, before floating over to him. It… burbled, affectionately, in a language that had never been spoken aloud on this plane of existence, and Carlos smiled and responded in kind. Finally, it floated happily back to Cecil’s body, and Carlos and his team watched on multiple planes as it re-anchored. Carlos opened his eyes in time to see Cecil’s body shiver, and the eyes he loved so much blink open, as if out of a doze. The rest of the scientists were staring open-mouthed. Cecil smiled benevolently.

“And that’s all it is to it!”

And that is where Carlos got the idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this chapter took so long. It's been mostly done for a few months now, but I kept going back and retweaking it. Even now I think I may have to go back and edit parts of it, but you guys deserve to have it after such a long wait. (This chapter was also supposed to be only a section of the final chapter, so I had to split it up.) The next (and hopefully actually final chapter) of this part of the trillogy is practically writing itself, so I hope to have it out in the next week or so. 
> 
> Thank you guys for being so patient! :)


	6. And We're Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos begins to plot...

Cecil left about half an hour after that, to finish writing his show.The team had been reluctant to let him leave so soon, as Ramona was the only one who had any sort of luck, and they had so many questions. The radio host had promised to come back and help them out again sometime, but that “Frankly, all you need right now is practice! After all, a council’s worth of meat crowns isn’t harvested in a day!”

They didn’t ask where that delightful idiom came from as he left.

Carlos dismissed the team to work on their own experiments, or practice, or prepare for the inevitable crisis that would occur throughout the day while mysteriously being in sync with Cecil’s radio program, and returned to his own section of the lab. The glitter he had been looking at that morning had vanished, but it had left him a note in what looked like mustard saying that really, it had a great time participating in science but it really definitely had to go run these errands and it was certain the scientist would understand. It probably said some other things as well, but Carlos skimmed it more than anything. He had something else on his mind. 

Carlos loved Cecil. Sex with Cecil was… well, it was fantastic. Cecil was always delighted by everything Carlos had to give him, and Carlos was so happy to have someone like Cecil, who loved him in either of his forms, who didn’t mind being wrapped up and possessed and taken like Carlos did to him. But even with all that Cecil had allowed him to do, there were some things that just weren’t possible. It wasn’t a fault of either party, and it wasn’t something Carlos couldn’t live without, but…

But how wonderful would it be? To reach out with all of his being and eclipse Cecil, coat him entirely and just be with him? What a beautiful treat, one that Carlos had thought impossible, but why hadn’t he looked? He was a scientist, for goodness sakes, why hadn’t he done any research into it?

“I might need to change fields,” he muttered to himself as he scrubbed the mustard off of the counter. “I keep ignoring avenues of research.” 

After all, if Cecil was able to astrally project to communicate with pandimensional beings, who was to say that he couldn’t transcend dimensions that way? 

Work ethics be damned, he would be busy with his own pet project today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this was so short, but it fit better as a small separate tiding over piece than in the next chapter. Thank you all for being so patient, the next part should be up within a week or so!
> 
> (This piece was also unbeta'd, and finished at 3am, so please let me know if you see any glaring errors so I can correct them!)


	7. The Experiment

It took him two weeks to get the whole thing together. Between research, both his own and that of his colleagues, and working out the practical details of it, two weeks had flown by. He hadn't wanted to rush anything without evidence backing it - this wasn’t worth risking Cecil’s safety, or his own, but now he was confident enough in his research to run a proper experiment.

Now he just had to propose it to Cecil. 

  
  


\---------

  
  


“Cecil, I’m calling for personal - oh.” Carlos blinked in surprise at Cecil, who had just walked into his apartment with a large paper grocery bag. “I, uh, guess that’s why you weren’t picking up then.”

Cecil raised an eyebrow, a smirk fighting exasperation on his lips. “Carlos, did you forget I was coming over again?” He walked past him into the kitchen and began unloading the bag. “It’s my turn to cook dinner this week. I reminded you yesterday.” 

Carlos searched his memory. He had been working most of yesterday, although he did recall Cecil stopping by very briefly… though, at the time, Carlos had been elbows deep in a petri dish that had started expanding to accommodate a unique sample of cactus moss. He hadn’t really been able to pay attention when the radio host had been there, and his coresearchers all had questions that they needed to ask him anyways, so… It was quite possible, he thought guiltily, that Cecil had reminded him, and he simply hadn’t noticed. In fact, it was downright likely. 

“Sorry Cecil, I must’ve been caught up with work…” Cecil “hmm’d” in response, his lips narrowing, exasperation winning out.

“Well, at least you’re here,” he said with a sigh, folding the now empty bag and tucking it with the others for use later. “I was thinking spaghetti squash pasta, wheat and wheat-by-product free, of course, with some chickpeas and corn chips.” He started moving about the kitchen, filling a pot with water, turning the stove on, and preparing to cook. “I thought you’d be out at the lab longer. You’ve seemed really engrossed in a project, this week.” The pair of spaghetti squash squeaked happily as the host rinsed them off.

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that…” Carlos manifested a few tendrils, aiding Cecil in food prep. He felt a little flutter of happiness in his chest when he saw the small smile that ghosted over Cecil’s expression, knowing he’d been forgiven for forgetting about tonight. “I’ve actually been doing research for an experiment I’d like you to help me with, if you’d like.”

Cecil turned and leaned against the counter. “Well, since you seem to have taken over making dinner, you have my full attention.”

“Well, after your demonstration with astral projection for the team, I had some hypotheses and theories that I’ve been looking into… and since nothing really threatening has been happening around town as of late, I had a lot of time for research, and I had a hypothesis that I thought… okay, do you remember what you told me about unidimensional people and pandimensional people? The discrimination between them?”

Cecil tapped one finger against the counterside, biting the inside of his lip. “I… can’t say that I do, specifically.” 

“The thing about… well, about unidimensional people ‘not being able’ to love pandimensionals.” Carlos included the finger-quotes, keeping a steady eye on Cecil. They hadn’t really talked much about this since they first started having sex, but he still remembered how awfully sad Cecil had looked when the reporter had first said it. He honestly didn’t know how much this would affect him.

Cecil’s countenance, and aura, darkened almost immediately. “Oh. That. Yes, I remember that.” 

“Cecil, I want you to know that this experiment has to do with that, and if you don’t want to take part, that’s absolutely fine, okay?” He waited until Cecil, hesitantly, nodded. “I have a theory that someone unidimensional could use a variation of astral projection to interact with multidimensionals outside of their own dimension, with the aid of said multidimensional. And, if you’d be willing, I’d like to test this with you.”

Cecil stared, brow furrowed, lips pursed slightly. “So… you’re saying I would be able to reach you, like… in another dimension? Like other pandimensionals do?” His colors were of quiet contemplation, mulling over the information and its… implications. “Like… touch you?”

“And be touched,” Carlos responded, voice much softer than he had intended. “I’d… I’d really like that. But if you don’t -”

The rate at which Cecil switched from calm thought to vivid, overwhelming excitement caught the scientist by surprise; He only just managed to keep his balance as the reporter pounced on him. “Yes. Yes yes yes, I’d  _ love _ to help you with this experiment, my darling  _ brilliant _ Carlos,” he exclaimed, peppering Carlos with kisses between his words. Carlos grinned, intercepting him and meeting lip to lip, kissing him back, beginning to wrap tendrils of himself around him…

A loud hiss from the stove made them both jump, wide eyed, and Cecil swept away from him to stop the cooking pot from boiling over. “After dinner, though,” he added, aura cheerful and full of childish excitement. Carlos smiled.

“After dinner.”

  
  


\--

Carlos had been content to wait until after dinner to explain his theory, and the experiment. Unfortunately, he hadn’t really been working on much else that week in the lab, and he generally knew how Cecil’s week went, since the man broadcasted it to the town near every night. So, after catching the scientist up on detail highlights of the week, the reporter had begun pushing for the details of the experiment, obviously eager to get it underway once they were finished eating. 

“So it’s like this,” he explained, trying not to talk around mouthfuls of food. “Astral projection allows unidimensionals to interact with pandimensional aspects in this dimension. And some entities are able to pass through multiple dimensions, despite not consistently existing in them. With that being true, it might be possible for someone like me to hypothetically ‘lead’ someone’s astral projection into a dimension they can’t usually occupy.”

Through dinner, they discussed how this would work - where to sit, how to proceed, etc, until they had a framework they both felt comfortable with. Cecil would sit, nice and comfortable, on that lovely old couch and astral project. Carlos, meanwhile, was put in charge of keeping Cecil comfortable and safe through the experiment. There was a certain risk factor - he wasn’t exactly sure how a unidimensional body would react to being separated from its aural parts on a dimensional level. Cecil assured him that it would be fine - after all, how different could it be from regular astral separation?

Carlos wasn’t particularly reassured by that, so they agreed to go slowly and test the waters as they came along.

Which brought them to now. Cecil sat back on the couch, sinking into the cushions, fingers folded on his lap as he relaxed. Next to him, hardly putting any weight on the couch, sat Carlos, nearly manifest. Smoky tendrils ran across Cecil’s back and over his legs and chest, gently massaging the radio host. Every now and then, one would become a little bolder, push a little harder or move a little closer to an area of interest. He knew they were already working on one experiment, but he was suddenly curious to test and see how long Cecil could stay focused on projecting while under stimulation; how many teasing touches would it take to break his concentration?

Cecil began chuckling, one eye opening slightly. “Carlooos,” he drawled with mock admonishment. “You’re getting distracted…”

Carlos grinned sheepishly. “Sorry. It’s hard not to, around you.” He leaned over and nuzzled at the radio host’s neck nipping where it met his jaw when the man tilted his head.

Cecil’s breath caught. “Carlos, are you purposefully interfering with  _ science _ ?” he teased, unfolding his fingers so he could reach up and bury them in Carlos’s hair. 

Carlos sighed against his skin, enjoying the sensation of Cecil’s fingers in his hair. “Well, when you put it like that,” he replied, tugging away. “I’ll let you focus.”

“Mm-hm.” A knowing smile graced the host’s lips, but he just closed his eyes again and returned his hands to his lap. 

This time Carlos waited. Eyes closed, he watched Cecil’s aura pulse, then flutter, then… break away, with a rushed exhale. It floated in front of his body for a moment, orienting itself, before flowing over to Carlos, bubbling and chirping as its colors shifted in easy cascades of relaxed purples and greens. Carefully, Carlos reached out, curling around the amorphous energy and stroking it, marveling at its strange, rich texture. It was unlike anything he’d felt before.

At the contact, however, Cecil gasped sharply, and the colors vanished, snapping back to their body. Carlos opened his eyes immediately, looking over Cecil in concern. 

The radio host didn’t look troubled, though. His eyes had flown open  _ wide _ , and his lips were parted. Carlos knew that look. Still, better safe than sorry.

“Cecil? You good?”

“ _ Yes! _ ”  Cecil replied, nearly cutting him off. “Yes, sorry - I’ll, I’ll focus harder this time…” He closed his eyes again, this time tightly, with the expression of someone who is determined to succeed. This time, when Carlos closed his eyes, Cecil’s aura was waiting for him, floating just within reach. Again, one tendril curled out and stroked it. There was a whimper from Cecil, and the aura  _ quivered _ delightfully, but remained separate. Carlos was impressed, firstly by how much of an effect this was having on the host, and secondly by how quickly Cecil had adapted. Though, he thought, the latter could probably be attributed to his job. A radio host in this town who couldn’t adapt would probably not be a radio host for long. 

“I’m surprised, Cecil,” he murmured, stroking the aura once more. “I would have thought that with all your projection experience, contact wouldn’t affect you so much.”

Cecil’s response was a low moan, and then, in his radio voice, “I- I usually just o-observe,” he choked out, aura wavering violently as Carlos became a little bolder. “To be honest, people don’t tou-ooooh endless  _ void don’t stop! _ ”  he cried out as Carlos wrapped himself around Cecil’s aura entirely.

To say it wasn’t boosting his ego to see Cecil come apart so easily would have been an outright lie. Carlos tried not to push too much harder though - he didn’t want to give Cecil  _ too _ hard a time concentrating.

“Hey, Cecil, how are you able to talk through your body while projecting? When you demonstrated at the lab, you spoke ‘aurally,’ right?”

Carlos peeked one eye open curiously. Cecil’s face was the image of pure focus, but his mouth… his mouth appeared to be moving independently of the rest of his face, open and panting as the host struggled for words. He made a wonderful picture, sweating and coming undone, his pants tenting in a telling way.

“I-it’s annnn… an NVPR host… thing,” he painstakingly gasped. Carlos loosened his grip a little, giving the host some breathing room. He figured Cecil’s protesting whine must have been involuntary, because his face and aura flushed with embarrassment. “We’re specially trained to do both… so we can broadcast.” He took another steadying breath. “We can’t just broadcast silence my entire show.”

“Even if it's a silence other people can understand?”

“ But not everyone can. The common factor in Night Vale is existing in  _ this _ dimension - if I had equipment that could broadcast me aurally, there’s still a chance it would miss some listeners.”

“Huh.”

“ Not to mention,  _ I _ certainly don’t have access to anything that is capable of broadcasting aurally. That sort of thing is managed by City Council - I doubt they’d let me use any of it for my show.”

“So… not everyone can do it then…”

“Just professionally trained public radio hosts.”

“So just you?”

“And Leonard Burton… void spare his soul…”

“...Didn’t he guest star on the show today?”

“...yes?” The following “your point?” went unspoken, and Carlos chalked it up as another thing he might never understand about Night Vale.

“Alright,” he said instead. “Are you ready for stage two?”

Cecil’s aura wavered, his physical body shivering with excitement.

‘ _I love it when you talk Science, Carlos,’_

Carlos smiled. “I know you do. Now, ready?”

‘ _Yes.’_

“You remember the plan?”

‘ _Yes, Carlos.’_

“And you -”

‘ _ Carlos, if you keep holding me like this without doing anything, I am going to snap and jump your delicious bones and ruin your experiment, and we will have to postpone it for another day.’ _ His aura gingerly nuzzled into Carlos’s hold, and the host’s body gave a weak moan.  ‘ _ I’m good, I’m ready, let’s  _ go _ .’ _

Well. He was hardly about to argue with that. “Oh-okay, then…” He took a deep breath, expanding slightly. “Then, carefully, on the count of three.” He delicately took the astral equivalent of Cecil’s hand. “One… two…”

‘ _Three.’_

  
  


\--

  
  


Carlos was ecstatic. He floated through another dimension freely, and behind him he could sense another being, his beautiful, wonderful Cecil, unidimensional but unidimensional  _ here, _ where Carlos could express himself to the radio host in the most sincere and complete ways he could, with his entire being. The possibilities open to him now astounded him - the things he could show Cecil, share with him, do with him - they were practically endless. Years of discoveries lay ahead of them now, and he was eager to get started.

He mentally drew himself back. Cecil was the one in a new element here; he’d have to be sensitive to how he was feeling. They wouldn’t be able to just charge into anything yet, but, this was such a great first step!

He turned to observe how Cecil was doing.

He didn’t have a chest or lungs in this dimension, but if he had, his breath would have stopped dead.

  
  


In this dimension of matter coalescing in galactic spirals and vast stretches of manifested space, with everything interconnecting and intertwined with an intimacy their original dimension couldn’t touch, there was a sense of closeness, of bonding and intricacy.

  
  


The tear of void his tendril looped around did  _ not _ belong there.

  
  


_ Cecil? _ Carlos asked, fighting the urge to recoil from something so  _ wrong _ . The void did not answer, just continued to exist. It didn’t fill, as a void normally should have in a plane of such condensed matter. Contradictorily, it seemed to repel the matter around it, widening the space of the void while forcing everything around it to push even closer to itself. Indeed, Carlos felt his own tendril being forced outward, but he fought to keep his grip. He had been holding on to Cecil when he came through - was it possible that this  _ void _ , this absence in reality, was his boyfriend? How could that be?

  
  


He almost didn’t notice when something else materialized somewhere behind him, and he turned quickly, wondering what else this experience could throw at him.

  
  


_ W̻̫̥͕̯͞h̥̬̥̣͘y, ̶͕he̜̫̯̹l͏͇l̳̥̻̥͚̯͜ͅo͖̣͍̰͠ ̨̯̙t̨͖͍̰̜͈h͙̮͉̞̳̟é̩̝̖̖̤̞r̖͠e̤̼̬̜̼̺̙,̢̰͙͈̟ ̻͇̹̲͍͜f͕ṟ͈ị̢̝͉̦e̵̫͇̬͍̪͓͙n̲͖̗̩̗͈ͅḍ̻͙!̫ͅ  _

  
  


Where what had been Cecil was void, this new entity was not, it was the opposite of void, in purest form of condensed matter. It was massive, and dense, and Carlos was terrified of it.

  
  


He fled back to Night Vale, and he did his best to bring the void-that-might-be-Cecil back with him.

  
  


\--

  
  


When he woke, Cecil was leaning over him, eyes closed and chanting. Carlos could feel one hand resting in his hair, fidgeting every few seconds as if driven by nerves. He must have felt Carlos stir, because as Carlos watched, the host’s eyes opened.

“Oh. Oh Carlos, you’re awake!” He threw his arms around the scientist’s neck, hugging him tightly. “I was so worried! You were out for hours!”

As Cecil rushed to explain what had happened, from his perspective, Carlos could only make himself half listen. He was focused on Cecil’s aura, that bright, vibrant collection of energy and colors, and thinking about that absence, that cut out in reality, that had come through in the other world.

He would have to do more research...

  
  
  


 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, but this is the end of the second part of The Pandimensionality Trio. I'm hoping to have the beginning of the final part up in the next two weeks.


End file.
